Convergence of legacy analog communication devices with packet-switched voice communication systems can give rise to inefficient use of hardware resources. For instance, in a Unified Messaging System (UMS) operating in an IP network that can provide unified services such as voicemail, email, and fax messaging, an application server of the UMS can be used to manage call flow functions and hardware resources such as those belonging to a media server for processing media signals. The media server typically can have a number of costly Digital Signal Processing (DSP) resources which can be used to perform a number of functions such as voice signal processing, Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) signal processing, and fax processing—just to mention a few.
For some Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications such as voicemail, the application server of the UMS can process media streams without encoding or decoding the media with the DSP resources of the media server. Consequently, in some instances the cost effectiveness of the DSP resources of the media server can be put to question.
A need therefore arises for a system and method for distributed processing in an IP network.